


who you are or what you do

by harrycrewe



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:59:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrycrewe/pseuds/harrycrewe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin runs a health foods store with his friends. Arthur's a tech geek and a bit of a slob...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The pictures on Uther Pendragon’s wall are all out of date.

Arthur’s there: first as an apple-cheeked toddler, wearing in a vest and trousers that had actually been tailored for him, although he was no more than three at the time.  Next, an assortment of school portraits, taken at six, eleven, and fifteen. Finally there’s a family shot of him and Morgana, seated, while Uther stands proudly behind them and rests a hand on each shoulder.

There are other pictures of Morgana, too:  from the first time she appeared in their family as an eight-year old girl with her hair in pigtails, right through to the photographs that appeared in _Vogue_ and _Elle_ last year _,_ in whichshe sits looking over her shoulder, secretive and dangerous. Given that Morgana is his sister, Arthur has always found her raw sensuality on camera somewhat unsettling; even more so when the photos hang in Uther’s living room.

The last frame on Uther’s wall holds an oil painting rather than a photograph.  It’s a life-sized portrait of Arthur, and in it he’s just turned eighteen. He’s standing with his arms crossed, confident and arrogant in his youth, looking not unready to take over the world.  He’s wearing pair of gray slacks and a white shirt, his hair is neatly trimmed, even his fingernails are buffed.

The painting was a gift when Arthur went off to college six years ago. Since then the artist has gone on to be very successful, so it’s become valuable. It makes up the centerpiece of Uther’s little gallery, carefully placed to elicit the maximum envy in his guests.

Uther was never the kind of father who put up less than perfect pictures, so there is nothing of Morgana’s awkward preteen moments on the wall. Instead, she goes straight from angelic child to adult siren, as if one day she simply clapped her hands and shifted from one state to the other. There are no photos of the three of them as a family doing any silly, less-than-dignified family things together (because, in fact, they never did them). There are none of the fuzzy, out-of-focus shots an eight-year-old boy learning to use a camera might take. There are no pictures of Ygraine, Arthur’s mother, but that isn’t because she wasn’t beautiful. Possibly, her love is the only thing Uther has never tried to capitalize on.

Having attractive, successful children is a part of Uther’s image, and Arthur understands that, but it grates on him anyway.  But because he’s a lot like his father, in many ways - proud – he’s never wasted time complaining to Uther about feeling like the prized German Sheppard in a dog show. There’s no point, when he already knows how Uther would respond. Instead, Arthur spent his high school years gritting his teeth and getting on with it: he lived in Uther’s house so he played by Uther’s rules: polite, hard-working and respectful until the day he moved out.

He didn’t stop being hard-working after he struck out on his own, but he might have started to let other things slide. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just happened bit by bit. One morning he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror while shaving and thought, ‘why do I bother?’ The next morning, he didn’t shave at all.

Next to go were the contact lenses – they had always made his eyes itch – followed by the crisp trousers and jackets that made him look like a tosser anyway. Then he stopped getting his hair cut, and found he liked that too. After growing it out for about a year and with some experimentation, he began keeping it tied back: between that and the beard, Morgana said that he looked like someone who came out of the art department instead of the business school.

When Arthur graduated and decided not to apply for law school or get his MBA, Uther was angrier than either of his children had seen him in years.  When he found out that Arthur planned to sink nearly twenty thousand dollars into a start-up with Leon and Percy, he call Arthur from a meeting in Hong Kong to order him to stop fooling around. Arthur hung up on him. He was an adult, and the money was his, from his mom’s estate, that Uther couldn’t touch since he’s turned twenty-one.

The next month, the stipend that had always kept Arthur in good clothing, good haircuts, good apartments and good food, failed to appear in his bank account. Uther’s PA let him know that he shouldn’t expect any more until he apologized to his father and reconsidered Harvard law.

Arthur sublet his Manhattan apartment for a modest increase over the actual rent, sold his car, sublet his parking space, and used all of that to rent a tiny apartment on the lower east side.  From its cramped living room, Leon and Percy furiously wrote code while Arthur tried to put any small part of his business education to practical use. Fortunately he’d taken several computer science courses as well, and that turned out to be infinitely more useful to all of them. Their first app did modestly well, and by the time they made an android version, Arthur had made most of his investment back. The second app was an unexpected success, earning enough that they started talking about quitting their day jobs.

Uther hadn’t talked to Arthur in nearly a year by the time they decided to move out to Washington State.

 

o-o-o

 

Hunith’s house is crammed with photos: fuzzy shots, silly shots, shots that her son would rather she box up and put into the attic.

She’s there in faded snaps with her husband, Balinor, starting off when they are both just sixteen. In them she’s wearing a scarf in her hair and a peasant blouse and he’s got a thick beard. It’s the summer after they first met and they’re about to take off across the country together, in a VW rabbit with the trunk packed full of camping gear. They are young and happy, and every time their son sees them there together he takes away a different emotion: sometimes loving, sometimes melancholy, and sometimes with just an odd sense of disbelief that time passes as it does, so definitively.

Of course, there are pictures of Merlin everywhere too. Those are the ones he sometimes wishes Hunith would take away. Merlin at five and six and seven is a cute funny boy with freckles and gaps between his teeth, smiling guilelessly into the camera. At twelve and thirteen he’s grown his hair longer to hide his eyes, and he isn’t smiling anymore. His face has become a spotty mess and his clothes are intentionally less than flattering. Back then, it was like he was trying to show through his appearance how completely miserable he felt on the inside.

God, middle school was a nightmare, wasn’t it, being bullied by the so-called popular kids. He spent nearly three years hardly talking to anyone, eating his lunch in the corners and in the bathrooms, obsessing about the jokes kids were making at his expense. People would say, ‘oh, it’s just boys being boys’ - or ‘it’ll toughen you up, you’ll get used to it’.

But no one ever does, at least as far as Merlin’s concerned: when that happens to you when you’re a kid, it gets burnt into your psyche instead. The rest of his life, probably, he’s going to remember: it’s what makes him hesitate, even when all he really wants to do is run blindly forward - it makes him careful every time he meets somebody new.

But in Merlin’s case, being bullied has also made him to be careful to be kind. And it makes him appreciate good people and good friends. As the pictures move from left to right across Hunith’s mantelpiece, it’s easy to see the moment when things started to get better: the first time Gwen appeared at his side, where he’d previously always been alone, and then the first time Lance was there with them: the prom photo from the year the three of them went together, Lance and Merlin in ridiculous fluorescent tuxedos, Gwen shining like a beacon of loveliness between them. Then college came around and Freya appeared, and Gwaine and Mordred, and more and more the pictures are crammed full: spring break, Thanksgiving, camping trips in the Cascades, people smiling and laughing and making faces for the camera. Bit by bit, the world became full of people Merlin loves, and while the pictures may be under-exposed, not taken with an expensive camera, or with the occasional hole in them where an ex was cut away, they are still, in their own way, quite perfect.


	2. Chapter 2

o-o-o

_Let’s go let’s go let’s go let’s go_

_-Matt & Kim_

o-o-o

 

It rains practically all the time in Seattle, but once in a while the clouds open up and the sun shines down on the damp pavement. It makes everything look different, cheerful and absurd, like the movie version of a city instead of the real thing.  People on the street walk slower and smile at each other, shrugging as if to excuse the fact that their giddiness might be ever-so-slightly less than fashionable. Even after the sun slips behind the clouds again the warm feeling lingers, like a little jolt of espresso.

That’s what it felt like to Merlin the first time he saw Arthur Pendragon.

He had been sweeping the sidewalk in front of his mother’s store when a man happened to pause in the street in front of him. He was about Merlin’s age, with longish blond hair pulled messily back and two or three weeks of stubble at least, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans that were neither fashionable nor unfashionable enough to be entirely intentional. He was glaring at an apparently unresponsive and unrepentant iphone, and then he looked up at Merlin and they made eye contact. Even behind a pair of thick glasses, his eyes were big and blue, and they made Merlin catch his breath.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Is this Camelot Street?”

“This is Ealdor Lane,” Merlin managed to stammer out, “Camelot is two blocks over.” He pointed with his dustpan.

“Thanks,” said the vision, tucking his iphone in his pocket. “Stupid thing’s on the fritz.”

“No problem,” Merlin tried to gather his wits well enough to think of some way to extend the conversation, but the man was already turning away, as if he had somewhere he needed to be. The view as he walked away was nice, too. Merlin watched him until he turned the corner, and then shrugged mentally and went back to his cleaning.

 

A few hours later, in the quietest part of the afternoon, he was leaning against the cash register reading comic books when he heard the bell tied to the front door jangle.

“Welcome to Hunith’s Healthy Foods,” he said without looking up.

“Avengers?” asked an amused voice. “I’ve always been more of a DC kind of guy myself.”

Merlin glanced up, intending to give the person a piece of his mind, but felt his mouth drop open instead.  It was the same man from earlier that day, squinting at Merlin with a kind of grin that Merlin was almost sure meant he was flirting. “I hope you’re joking,” he said lightly, and was pleased with himself for getting the line out without a squeak.

The man grinned, and Merlin felt his knees go weak.  “This is a nice neighborhood,” he said. “I’ve never been out this way before.”

“Thanks,” Merlin said. “I, uh, grew up here.”

“Right,” the guy said, still looking at Merlin with those big blue eyes, as if he was trying to figure something out. “I’m Arthur,” he said finally, sticking out a hand.

“Merlin,” Merlin shook his hand.

“So, um, Merlin – I’m really sorry if I’ve got this wrong, but after we talked on the street I was thinking – that is, I was wondering,” Arthur’s grin widened, “I didn’t want to leave without asking. Whether - would you like to get coffee or something, sometime?”

Merlin stared at him in surprise.  He felt the tips of his ears going red. The silence dragged just a second too long –

“I’m sorry, nevermin-” Arthur had started to say when Merlin interrupted him.

“Sure. Yes. Now?”

Arthur looked at him and laughed outright. “Yeah,” he said, “why not? I’m free now. Are you free now? Don’t you have to work or something?”

“Just give me a second,” Merlin said. He dashed to the back of the store, yanking his apron off as he went. “Mom!” he called. “I’m going out; can you man the till for a bit?”

Hunith stuck her head out of the office. Her hair was piled on the top of her head in a frizzy bun, with a pencil stuck in it, which was her normal look when doing the books. “Sure, sweetie,” she agreed.

Arthur was waiting for him at the front of the store, hands tucked into his jean pockets. He grinned at Merlin, and Merlin grinned back. The weather had clouded over since that morning, but it still felt like a sunny day.

 

o-o-o

_Rewind, replay…_

o-o-o

 

“You’ve got the job,” Tristan had said, holding out his hand. Arthur shook it firmly. “Mind if I don’t show you out? I’ve got an eleven o’clock.”

Arthur nodded in understanding. He let Tristan’s secretary guide him back to the elevators, concentrating on keeping his back straight and his expression neutral as he watched the numbers blink back down to the ground floor. Once he was the front door he walked briskly until he was a full block away. Then, finally, he felt he could relax, and let out the smile that had been threatening to break through ever since he realized that Tristan was about to give Round Table, Inc. a multi-million dollar contract.

Tristan had been three years ahead of Arthur at Harvard, and they’d been on the rowing team together. Arthur still thought of him as the practical joker who’d gotten caught with his pants down outside his girlfriend’s quad in midwinter. Now, though, he was the vice president of the west coast branch of his father’s company, which had just become the first major customer for Arthur’s start-up.  Arthur hadn’t even realized that a deal like that might be on the table when, last week out of the blue, Tristan had called him and suggested a meeting. He’d imagined a quick catch-up between friends, with maybe, if he was lucky, a little business on the side. That was reflected in the fact that he’d chosen to wear jeans rather than a proper suit.

Tristan hadn’t seemed concerned about that, though.

“I want to hear everything about what you guys are up to,” he had said. “If you, Leon, and Percy are working together on this, it’s going to be amazing. I want in on the ground floor.”

Alright, Arthur conceded to himself, maybe Uther had been right after all about the benefits of an Ivy League education when it came to networking.  No one had claimed that the business world operated on an even playing field after all, and the profit that they had made off of their first project was nearly used up. If Arthur didn’t take advantage of every opportunity, they weren’t going to be in business long enough for compete at all.

He thought about this as he walked, passing through the streets of the little neighborhood he’d admired in the morning without really noticing where he was going. Walking helped to clear his head, although Arthur couldn’t help but think about all the steps that would have to be taken in the next days and weeks. Leon would have to be switched off the long-term project to work on this contract for Tristan, but probably there was enough overlap that a good portion of the code could be used for both jobs, as long as they were careful to do everything right the first time… and now they had enough money that they wouldn’t need to rush. 

A sudden streak of yellow ran across his path; Arthur nearly tripped but managed to regain his balance just at the last moment. The cat – because it had been a cat, trying to kill him – hissed at him before disappearing through the open door of a bookstore. Arthur frowned at it and then, broken from his thoughts, looked at the display of new aged literature, crystals and horoscopes cluttering the window.

Just next door was the health foods store where he had stopped in the morning to ask directions. In fact, when Arthur leaned a bit he could see, through its large plate windows, the same boy he had talked to before. His lean frame was bent over the cash register; what appeared to be a comic book folded back in one hand. In the morning, the only thing Arthur had particularly noticed about him had been his large ears, which he had thought gave the boy an approachable, quirky attractiveness. Now, Arthur saw something dreamy in his expression, too.  He seemed to be laughing to himself, maybe about something he had read, as if he was in his own world.

Without thinking much about what he was doing, Arthur walked over and pushed the door open.  It seemed as though this was his day, and he might as well take advantage of the fact. Even that cat running in front of him was going to end up leading him in the right direction.

 

o-o-o

 

“Where’s Merlin?” A few hours later, Freya had arrived at Hunith’s for her afternoon shift. She hung up her coat and slipped her blue work apron on over her head. “Wasn’t he supposed to work this afternoon?”

Gwen, who had come in only five minutes earlier herself, peered at their work schedule, tacked up by the door. It was a mess of crossed out names, arrows indicating swapped shifts, and food stains. It was only Tuesday, and it looked as those Gwaine had already canceled or shifted his entire schedule. In fact - Gwen’s eyes narrowed in on her own name – it looked like he had swapped her Thursday shift for his Friday one, without even bothering to ask her first.  She sighed to herself: there was no point in calling him on it, since he’d only point out (accurately) that she had nothing to do that evening anyway, what with Lance still being in Zambia. She grabbed the sharpie that hung next to the schedule and drew a little unhappy face next to her own name.

“I don’t know where Merlin is,” she said. “It looks like he ought to be here.”

“He never misses a shift,” Freya commented. “Maybe he’s in the back signing for a load?”

Gwen tucked an escaped strand of hair back behind her ear. “I don’t think we have any shipments arriving this afternoon, though.”

She had been working at Hunith’s for nearly seven years, which made her the store’s second-most senior employee following Merlin, who didn’t really count anyway, since he was the owner’s son. Merlin had been stocking shelves at Hunith’s since he was six. Gwen had been his best friend since they were eight, so she’d been an unofficial helper as well for most of her childhood. When she’d turned fifteen, Hunith had given her a proper job, which had now lasted her through high school, college, and almost two years of independent, adult life.

She was grateful to Hunith, of course – and it was loads of fun, working with her friends all day – but Gwen was starting to worry that she needed a more adult job. It was, however, still a pretty good thing to be doing while she waited for her boyfriend to come back from the Peace Corps.

Hunith wandered into the employee room with an empty mug, and dropped a soggy tea bag into the trash can by the sink.

“Where’s Merlin?” Freya asked her.

Hunith blinked kindly. “Oh, he had to leave a few hours ago.”

“Really? Where did he go?”

Hunith picked up the electric kettle and added water from the sink, then turned to rummage through her basket of herb teas. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I think he might have met somebody.”

“Met somebody?” Freya’s eyes went round. “Our Merlin?”

Gwen rolled her eyes, and Hunith shrugged, and held up one hand to show that her fingers were crossed.

“What did he look like?”

“Well, I didn’t get a good view…”

“Is he going to be back in time for the four o’clock shift?”

“Oh!” Hunith said. “I didn’t really think of that… hmm. I had better call Gwaine.”

Gwaine, luckily enough, was free - he was generally free, he just pretended to be busier than he was. Gwen thought that was because he just liked keeping his schedule unfixed, so that he could disappear on a moment’s notice. Gwaine lived in an apartment above the bar just across the street, which he shared with Will (another old friend of Merlin’s, who worked at the store) and Mordred, so after Hunith called it only took him twenty minutes to show up. Before he was halfway through the door, Freya had begun to fill him in on the exciting new development of _Merlin_ possibly being out on a _date._ Gwen frowned, thinking that Freya and Gwaine were the two worst gossips she had ever met. She wouldn’t want to be Merlin when he finally did reappear.

 

Merlin must have had the same thought himself, because when he finally slunk in it was getting late, after the evening crowd, when nothing was left but to close up for the night and work through the books. Gwen let him in the back door; the rest of their friends had already gone out the front.

“Had a good time?” She asked, and was amazed to see his ears turn pink.

“Not like that!” Merlin protested, waving his hands in front of his face as if he could physically defend himself from her questions. But then, unable to stop himself, he came up and put an arm around her waist and grinned at her. “Well, maybe like that. A bit. Only just coffee, but Gwen, I think I could really like this guy.”

 

o-o-o

 

It wasn’t that Merlin had a problem with his friends knowing when he was seeing someone. It was just that everyone had known him since he was a kid, and Hunith’s Healthy Foods and basically the whole Albion shopping district was such a gossip mill that he couldn’t fall off his bike three blocks from the store without the news traveling back so quickly that his mom had the Band-Aids ready before he even came limping through the side gate. After his last relationship had gone south, the whole thing had been deconstructed by his friends and neighbors coworkers ad nauseam, which was something he definitely wanted to avoid happening again.

So he waited until the next afternoon to call Arthur, stealthily avoiding Freya (who _would_ spy on him while she pretended to restock the fruit) until at a moment when could slip away to the back of the shop.  He held his breath the whole time, half because he was afraid that somebody would walk in on him at any moment, half waiting to see if Arthur would pick up.

Arthur answered on the second ring. “Merlin,” he said, slurring the first syllable a bit, as if he had known that of course Merlin was going to call. Despite that, he sounded pleased.

“Hi,” Merlin said. “So, I was thinking, if you’re free on Friday…”

 

o-o-o

 _Oh - all the weird kids know  
how to take it slow_

_\- Built by Snow_

o-o-o

 

They bought food at Pike’s Place Market, and ate it sitting from each other, cross-legged, on one of the benches overlooking the waterfront. It had gotten chilly in the afternoon and the wind whipped Arthur’s hair into a crazy mess. Merlin’s hands and nose got colder and colder, but neither of them suggested moving.

“I haven’t had much chance to get out of the city yet,” Arthur confessed. “I just moved here in June.”

“We could go hiking tomorrow,” Merlin said without thinking. It was probably too soon - he hastily backtracked. “I mean, actually, Saturday I have to work. Sunday? Or the weekend after?” He felt his face going a little bit red, but Arthur took it in stride.

“Sunday sounds good.”

His face was red too, like his jacket.  Merlin laughed and then bit his lip. Arthur smiled back.

 

That Sunday they were grinning as soon as they saw each other. They walked until they were sweaty and tired, and then when they went to say good bye, it turned into necking in the parking lot instead. Luckily no one was around, because it turned into Arthur pressing Merlin’s back up against a not-very comfortable pine. It was ridiculous, and juvenile, and it left Merlin with a red stripe down his spine for the trouble.

Later on, he spent a lot of time angling the mirror on the back of the bathroom door with the mirror on the medicine cabinet, to see it better. It made him grin idiotically.

 

o-o-o

 

Gwen rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything when Merlin cornered her the next day in Freya’s loft, asking her to take his shift that Thursday.

“Really?” She asked. “You have a dentist’s appointment? That’s the best you could come up with?” 

Merlin gave her a pleading look, “come on, Gwen, please?”

“I can’t,” she rolled her eyes. “and Gwaine switched his shift with mine, _again_ , _without asking me,_ so I’m already working on Thursday afternoon _and_ evening.”

“Shoot,” Merlin spun on his heels, turning towards Freya, who was painting in the corner, and Gwaine, who was lounging on the couch by the door playing with a hacky sack, “Guys?”

“I can do it,” Freya sighed. “I need the extra cash anyway.”

She had thought she was going to get a spot at an exhibition in one of the newer galleries downtown, but had received a call earlier that afternoon telling her that they’d decided to go with someone else.  She’d been painting furiously ever since – it was her form of therapy – broad swatches of oranges with flecks of emerald mixed in, burring together at a distance to become gray.  Hunith and Will were manning the store, and Merlin, Gwen and Gwaine were supposed to be on a mission to cheer her up.

“Thanks,” Merlin said, fervently. “You’re a lifesaver. A Goddess.”

“Yes, yes,” she agreed, laughing, “but I have a price.” 

Merlin regarded her warily.

“This guy!” Freya said. She took a step back from her easel, and looked at Merlin with a spark of enthusiasm in her eyes for the first time that day. “What’s his name?” she asked, “what does he look like? What does he do?”

Merlin shrugged. “I just want to see how this goes,” he begged her, “Give me little space for now?”

Freya frowned, and the gradually her expression went sly. She looked significantly at Gwaine, who ambled forward and slung his arm around Merlin’s shoulder. “One week,” Freya told Merlin, pointing her paintbrush at him. “But then, we want to meet him.”

“You guys are the _worst,”_ Merlin grumbled, “but fine, next week.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Gwaine teased, and Merlin left to the sound of them laughing.

 

o-o-o

_Fast Forward…_

o-o-o

 

They had been texting back and forth all the time. It had been a while since Merlin had done that: getting messages throughout the day that made him laugh, biting his lip when he thought of the right line to shoot back. He felt warm every time he thought about Arthur: his scruffy beard, shaggy hair, in his comfortable worn jeans and hoodie. Merlin knew it was silly – they didn’t know each other that well yet – and yet Arthur just felt right – comfortable and homey but at the same time exciting in a way that made the world seem new, and everything possible. For once there was no little voice in the back of Merlin’s head, telling him to be careful. Instead it was like there was a Grecian chorus chanting that this could be _it,_ that Arthur could be the _One._

But then Arthur cancelled on him, calling in the morning of while Merlin was taking inventory of their latest order. His voice sounded hoarse and apologetic.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, “but I need to take a rain check tonight.”

Merlin cradled his cell phone by his ear, ignoring the way Gwen and Gwaine smirked at him when they could see he was on the phone with Arthur.

“What’s happened?” 

“Do you remember that big project at work I told you about? We’ve run into a bit of a kink. We were up all last night working, and we still haven’t solved it.”

Merlin felt disappointment cooling in his belly.

“Alright,” he said. “That’s ok. Call me when things are less busy.”

“Or,” Arthur said, sounding tentative. “I don’t know. If you’re interested, you could probably come over here.”

Merlin cradled his cell under his ear. “Would that be alright?”

“Sure,” Arthur said. “Sure, why not? You can come see the place.”

 

Which was how Merlin found himself a few hours later, looking dubiously up at the apartment building that seemed to match the address that Arthur had texted him. He thought it was the right building. Arthur had warned him that it wasn’t very well labeled. 

It was one of those boxy flat sixties-style buildings in which each apartment had a small balcony facing in the same direction. On account of being on a hillside, they probably had good views of the city, and the bay below, and there were trees planted all around. 

“Merlin!”

He looked around, and then up, and saw Arthur waving to him from one of the balconies. God, it looked like he hadn’t shaved all week.

“I’ll come down!” Arthur said, and then disappeared into the house. A minute later, the front door was swinging open, and Arthur was running his hand back over his head, as if he was nervous.

“I brought soup,” Merlin said, holding up the bag of take-away from the pub that was his friend’s usual hang-out, “Carrot and ginger, and broccoli-potato.”

“Sounds great,” Arthur said. He ducked around the soup bag to give Merlin a quick kiss, and then looked faintly embarrassed as if he’d surprised himself.  “We’ve been eating pizza and Thai take-away for days, I need the change.”

Merlin followed him up the steps to the third floor, and down the hallway.  Arthur pushed the door open wide. 

The front room was cluttered. Several tables had been pushed into the relatively small space, with cables and extension cords and pieces of paper strewn around and between them. Two men were sitting there next to each other, staring intently at a computer screen that appeared to Merlin to be displaying a running stream of gibberish.

“So,” Arthur said, clearing his throat. “Leon, Percy,” meet Merlin.

Merlin smiled and waved awkwardly.  Arthur’s friends were, unbelievably, almost as good looking at he was – they looked more like rugby players than computer geeks. 

“Hi!” the one called Leon said, getting up,“Merlin! Great to finally meet you!” He stretched his hand out, which forced Merlin to shuffle his messenger bag and the bag of take-away before he could accept it.

“I come bearing, uh, soup,” he said.

Leon’s face broke into a broad grin. “Brilliant!” he said. “That’s amazing!”

Percy, who from what Arthur had told Merlin was a bit quiet, had gotten up and shook Merlin’s hand in the meanwhile.   He was wearing a ‘Harvard’ jersey with the sleeves cut off. 

“It was my favorite food in college when I had to pull an all-nighter,” Merlin said.

Percy smiled, “I’ll get bowls and spoons,” he said, and turned for the kitchen.

They cleared off enough of the couch and chairs for everyone to sit, Percy came back with the silverware, and there was a moment of awkward silence.

“You guys work here?” Merlin asked stupidly, wanting for something to say.

“And Arthur lives here,” Leon said, nodding towards the backroom. “So did Percy and me, when we first moved out here.”

“And when was that?”

“Three months ago. It took us about seven months to sell our first app…. which, thank goodness. If Arthur’s sister hadn’t been bailing us out, we wouldn’t have lasted even half that long.”

Leon laughed as he remembered. Merlin looked questioningly at Arthur.

“Ok, so I might have underestimated the cost of a start-up, slightly,” he admitted.

“But seriously, you were all in here together?” Merlin eyed the space around them. “That must have been...”

“cramped,” Percy admitted.

“A little much,” Leon agreed, “frankly, it was better for our friendship that Percy and I found our own places quickly. You see, we all lived together when we were freshman in college – so for some reason we thought we could manage it again”

“Where was that?” Merlin asked.

“Harvard,” Leon said.

“Oh,” said Merlin. He glanced at Arthur. Somehow, that hadn’t come up before – although he supposed it wasn’t surprising, really, since Arthur was a computer programmer and had to be smart.

“Anyway,” Leon had already moved on. “Yeah, that lasted about a month before we were ready to kill each other. Now I live down the street and Percy’s with his girlfriend.”

“That way I see her a little more,” said Percy.

Merlin felt Arthur’s eyes on him, and when he caught his glance, Arthur smiled. Merlin felt himself smiling back.  It felt good, like this, to meet Arthur’s friends, to know that Arthur wanted him to know them.

 

He hung around a little longer, but it was clear that they were still in the middle of their big rush, so soon after the soup was finished Merlin made his excuses and put his coat back on, so that they could get back to work.

“I’ll walk you down,” Arthur said, quickly. “I hope that was ok,” he said, once the apartment door closed and they were alone together in the apartment corridor.

“They seem like great guys,” Merlin said truthfully. Maybe he had been a bit silly after all, wanting to keep Arthur separated from Gwen and Freya and Gwaine. Everybody was awesome, and it was silly of him to worry that he’d be jinxing things with Arthur by letting them meet. “It would be nice if you met my friends, too.”

He wasn’t prepared for the way that Arthur’s face broke into a broad smile. “I’d like that,” Arthur said.

“Maybe after your deadline passes?”

“Perfect.” Arthur kissed him goodbye, and then, as if unable to stop himself, kissed him once more quickly. Merlin, laughing, couldn’t help but kiss him back. They stood like that in the doorway of Arthur’s building, protected from the gray drizzle that had started up while they were inside, mostly shielded from the glances of the passers-by.

 

o-o-o

_If you love somebody_  
Better tell them while they’re here ‘cause  
They just may run away from you

_-Imagine Dragons_

o-o-o

 

But then, later on back at Hunith’s, he had a panic attack. He went looking for Gwen, to lay the whole thing out for her. She had been reading a newspaper in the break room when he’d come in and locked the door, to signal that he wanted to have a private conversation. Now she swirled the last of her lukewarm coffee around in its mug, and tried to think about what he was saying.

“I mean, seriously, Harvard, Gwen?”

 “Why does that matter, Merlin?”

“You can say that because Lance went to Stanford,” he said, “They’re _smart,_ Gwen. I mean, I knew Arthur was smart already, but that’s different than seeing the evidence of it, right in front of you!” He waved his hands wildly, meaning to demonstrate things like Computers, and Code. “I went to a community college and I studied book keeping. I mean,” he snorted, “it’s not exactly the same thing, now is it?”

She frowned.  “Merlin, you went to a community college because it was affordable, and because it was close to home, and because you wanted to be able to take care of your mom! You shouldn’t be embarrassed about that!”

He shook his head, to head her off, “I’m not.”

“Well, what is it like then?” she frowned at him for another moment, before a thought dawned on her. “Are you just nervous?”

Merlin glanced at her shiftily, “why should I be?”

“Well, you really like this guy, don’t you? And things are going pretty well.” Not that Merlin had been telling her so much about it, but it was obvious. He was always disappearing to visit Arthur, or tucked into a corner somewhere, leaning against the wall while he smiling at some new message Arthur must have sent. And now, they were meeting each other’s friends.

“Maybe,” Merlin conceded, “I’m just looking for the catch. There always has to be one, right?”

She grinned. “I’m happy for you, Merlin.”

He smiled back, and then moaned theatrically, falling back onto the break room couch next to her. “Why are you so good to me, Gwen? Why are you so good, period?”

She followed him to the end of the couch, and smacked his foot lightly. “I’m not,” she said, “and you deserve this."

He rolled over, tucking his hands under his chin to peer up at her from the couch. “What do you think I should do?” he asked.

Gwen smiled, twisting a strand of hair by her neck. She thought about her own relationship with Lance: those early days when they’d both realized they’d liked each other, but been afraid of hurting Merlin – how they’d ignored the tension between them like little kids until finally she’d kissed him, and Merlin had been lovely, amazing about it, even though she’d know that he had been a little afraid, probably, that they might leave him behind.

Their senior year of high school was still the happiest of her life – she must have been high on serotonin the entire time – and then Lance had told her that he’d decided to go to college in California, even though it was a place she definitely couldn’t get into, and hadn’t even applied anywhere close. She’d been sure that they were going to go to UW together that it hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder if he had other plans. He’d said that he didn’t want to break up, though, and she didn’t either, and they’d managed four years mostly long-distance that had still been pretty good. Then he’d finally, finally come back, and they’d moved in together, and it had been like one long summer, until Lance came and told her that he had joined the Peace Corps and was moving to Zambia.

She shook the thoughts away. “Don’t go looking for problems that don’t exist,” she told Merlin, “even if you love each other – _especially_ if you love each other - the real ones will find you soon enough.”

 

o-o-o

 

After that he bit the bullet and texted Arthur the address to Kilgharrah’s, where everyone was planning on getting together for the usual after-work drinks.

 _I’ll be there,_ Arthur texted back almost immediately.

Merlin bit his lip, and immediately started panicking again.

The first step was to warn everybody that Arthur was coming. “Please don’t make this a thing,” he begged them.

“Would we do that?” Gwaine asked, a twinkle in his eye, but when he saw that Merlin was serious, he stopped. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We don’t bite, I swear.”

“I know you don’t, I just,” Merlin knew how ridiculous he was being. “I know you don’t,” he repeated, with more confidence. “This is going to be great,” he said.

And then, increasingly, he was sure that it _was_ going to be great. All week he and Arthur texted back and forth, and it was great – better every day – like Arthur really got him and somehow, it felt like he got Arthur too.  He knew Arthur and Percy and Leon had finished met their deadline when Arthur sent him a single smiley face at 11:59 on Wednesday night – it had been due by Thursday by the start of the business day, so they even made it in with a couple of extra hours, to sleep.

 _Congratulations,_ he texted.

 _Feels good,_ Arthur wrote back. _Tired._

Merlin walked around the store Thursday with a stupid grin on his face, proud, even though he hadn’t really done anything.

 

o-o-o

_Meet me in the hallway_  
bite your lip when I say  
never have you left my mind  
stop and think it closer  
smile and move in closer 

_-Bombay Bicycle Club_

o-o-o

 

Gwen had to admit it, by this point she was _very_ curious to see this guy that had Merlin so over the moon. She spent extra time on her makeup after work that Friday, and, when she got to Kilgarrah’s and saw Freya’s elegant and time-consuming chignon, she knew she hadn’t been the only one with that idea.

Usually their little group of friends tended to trickle in and out as the evening went on, but on this occasion, forewarned of the novelty they were about to encounter, everyone was crammed into their usual booth by 6pm on the nose. Mordred had even brought an extra chair to the side. It sat, awaiting its passenger.

Gwen noticed that Merlin was wearing his best red sweater - the one that she had gotten him earlier that year on sale. He was twitchy, wrinkling his nose like a rabbit, and shooting nervous looks from time to time at Freya and Mordred, who were sitting like good children in church, hands folded in their laps and expressions angelic.

But Arthur Pendragon didn’t arrive.

“He must be running late,” muttered Merlin, fumbling with his phone.

“Drinks?” Gwen asked to distract him from worrying.

She managed to dispatch Mordred to the bar with a minimum of grumbling. Then Himself, Kilgharrah the cat, appeared, come to greet them by winding his tail around their legs and yowling.  

“Should we go ahead and order?” asked Freya.

Merlin checked his phone again. “Do you mind if we wait?”

They snacked on carrot sticks with blue cheese dressing, and took turns trading stories about the customers they’d dealt with earlier in the day.

“Can we take this?” someone had detached themselves from the crowd around the bar, and was trying to make off with Arthur’s chair.

“No!” Merlin lunged to grab onto it.

“Sorry, mate…”

Finally, after what seemed like ages, Gwen heard someone calling Merlin’s name, and turned in time to see –

no, surely that couldn’t be him.

But it was. The man Merlin was getting up to hug was tall, Gwen noticed, and his chin was brushed with stubble that might have been attractive if it were evened out by a trim. But that was where Merlin’s description of Arthur Pendragon and the reality parted ways. The long blond hair Gwen had expected looked greasy and unwashed, pulled back into a thick ponytail, and his clothes weren’t any better. He was wearing ugly, thick glasses, and a gray sweatshirt with bolognaise stains down the front.

“Hi,” he said, nodding at Gwen on his way to looking around the table. “I’m Arthur.”

“Hi, Arthur,” everyone echoed. Gwen caught herself making reluctant eye contact with Freya. She knew that they were thinking the same thing. They’d expected a cute computer geek: it looked like they’d gotten some sort of grubby slob instead. Really, could he not have bothered to change his shirt or comb his hair before coming over?

Merlin hadn’t seemed to notice. He nudged Gwen, who nudged Freya, who pushed Mordred out of the booth and into the empty chair. “So,” he said, “uh. This is Gwen – this is Freya, Arthur, Arthur, Freya. This is Mordred, he actually works here too. There’s Gwaine, too, but he’s holding down the fort.”

“Nice to meet you,” Arthur spoke absently, as if he wasn’t really interested. He seemed to be looking somewhere over Freya’s shoulder.

“So,” said Freya. “We were just getting ready to order.”

“Oh yeah?” Arthur asked. He glanced at Merlin. “What do you recommend?”

“Well, the veggie burgers are good.”

Arthur made a face. “No offense, but what’s the point of a burger without meat?”

Gwen and Freya shared another quick look.

“Merlin’s a vegan,” Mordred had always been the bluntest of the group. “You do know that, don’t you?”

“Oh yeah,” Arthur said, glancing at Merlin, “but you don’t mind if I eat meat, right?”

“Of course not,” Merlin cooed. Gwen caught Mordred raising his eyebrows. Where, she wondered, slightly amused, was the Merlin who could lecture customers _ad infinitum_ on the benefits of tempeh? 

They all looked at each other across the table, fumbling for an opener.

Freya found one first. “So Merlin helps run his mom’s store,” she said. “It’s the oldest health foods co-op in the city.”

“I heard,” Arthur glanced at Merlin. “That’s great.”

“Everything they sell is non-processed and local.”

He nodded, looking bemused.

“He’s always said he would never fall in love with a carnivore.”

“Freya!” Merlin snapped, but she only shrugged her shoulders and laughed at him. When Merlin began to saw that she was teasing them, he relaxed, laughing too.

“Well, I may have said that,” he admitted to Arthur, “but I was likely in high school at the time.”

“So you’ve never eaten meat?” Arthur asked.

“Nah. My mom raised me vegetarian. I don’t even like the taste of it; it’s too strange to me.” He wrinkled his nose.

“I guess I could stand to eat less,” Arthur said, but just then the waiter slid his hamburger into place in front of him. “I’ll start tomorrow, maybe.” He lifted the burger and took a bite, with gusto. The juice dripped down his chin, he appeared not to notice.

Freya caught Gwen’s eye again.

“So Arthur,” Gwen asked. “Merlin said you, uh, work in tech?”

Arthur nodded. “I majored in business, but yeah,” he said. “It’s just my friends and I. We started a small company.”

“What do you do?”

He frowned, pinning her with a look that clearly implied he wasn’t sure how much of his work she would understand. “Right now, we’re focusing on software that increases the speed of certain processes, for cell phones.”

“Oh,” Gwen didn’t know how to respond to that, it was true. She’d never been much with technology. She remembered what Merlin had said about Arthur's fancy education, and sighed to herself. No wonder he’d had been feeling insecure: the guy was clearly arrogant about his intelligence.

“How about you?” Arthur asked.

“Well, my day job’s is working at Hunith’s.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Freya broke in. “Gwen’s a fashion designer. You should see her clothing, it’s amazing.”

 “I just sell on Etsy and things,” Gwen blushed, “for now. And Freya’s a painter. And Gwaine’s a photographer, and he races mountain bikes. And Mordred’s a musician.”

Arthur nodded, looking bored, and the conversation trailed off for a minute. Gwen refrained from tapping her feet under the table; a nervous habit.

“Tell him about your music,” Freya poked Mordred with her elbow.

He grimaced. “It’s kind of hard to explain what I do.”

Freya rolled her eyes. “It’s very cutting edge,” she told Arthur. 

“Yeah?”

There was another pause.

“So you’re all artists, huh?” Arthur said, lamely. “That’s, uh, great.”

Freya looked pitying. “Yeah?” she asked sarcastically. “Thanks.”

Again, there was a pause. This time Merlin jumped into the gap, with some story about what had happened at work that day. Gwen leaned back and tried to think. This guy just wasn’t right for Merlin, she thought. He was just... rude.  

While she thought about that, the conversation between Freya and Mordred began to evolve into a discussion of the local music scene and some band that Mordred had been to see the weekend before.

“What was the last show you went to, Arthur?” Freya asked casually, reaching over to take a fry off Gwen’s plate.

Arthur coughed. “I haven’t been since… college, probably. What with work and all,” he added.

“You don’t care about music, then? What do you like to listen to?”

Arthur shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said dismissively, “It really isn’t my thing.”

“You know, Merlin’s a musician too,” Mordred said, “he plays bass. Sometimes he plays back-up for me.”

Arthur glanced at Merlin, who smiled back.  “It’s ok,” Merlin murmured, and then added, louder, “don’t worry about them; they can take a while to warm up to people.”

Gwen felt affronted. They were the ones making Arthur uncomfortable? Really, Merlin’s rose-colored glasses seemed awfully thick.  

Freya and Mordred were going on about a new album they’d discovered.

"You have to listen to it,” Mordred was saying, with more enthusiasm that Arthur had heard him express for anything else that night. “ _Dark Sister._ It’s really good.”

Arthur made a face as if he was about to cough up a hairball. Everyone stared at him.

"Have you heard of Morgana?" Freya asked, her voice conveying faint surprise.

"Maybe," Arthur said. "I think so. One or two of her songs?"

"What did you think?"

He looked thoughtful. "The lyrics are pretentious," he said, "and her voice is just so-so.”

Mordred sniffed, "I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand her music anyway."

"Mordred!" Merlin snapped.

"I probably am too much of a philistine to fully appreciate her music," Arthur said, mockingly. He got up then, "where's the bathroom?

"Back to the left of the bar," Merlin said, "I'll show you.  Sorry," Gwen heard him adding to Arthur, as they moved away from the table, "Mordred can be a little rude sometimes."

They didn’t come back for rather a long time. Gwen and Freya stared at each other, sending increasingly frantic telepathic signals between them. Finally, Freya got up, smoothed her chignon, and went for the ladies room.

She was back in under a minute.

“They’re there,” she hissed. “Kissing next to the bathroom.”

Gwen resisted the urge to put her head in her hands. “Where did he get this guy?” she asked.

Freya and Mordred looked at each other, and then at her, shaking their heads. 

"He's not what I expected _at_ all," Freya admitted.

Gwen giggled nervously.

"Merlin said he was cute!” Freya went on.

"He might be if he would cut his hair,” Mordred's drawl, "and what's with those glasses? And those jeans?"

“And that _attitude_ ,” Freya said, exasperated.

“Hush,” Gwen said. “I think he’s coming back.”

 

o-o-o

_Well you can fight it but you know that you won’t get your way in the end  
Too many people, the king and all of his men_

_-Wolf Gang_

o-o-o

 

As soon as dinner, Gwen and Freya practically ran back to Freya’s flat together, desperate to deconstruct the evening.

Freya made it to the kitchen with dignity: she found a bottle of wine and a corkscrew, and a pair of glasses. Before she popped the cork, though, she stopped, and glanced at Gwen, and then put the corkscrew down and went for the draw where Gwen knew she kept her weed instead.

Freya slumped on the couch and Gwen settled herself to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her. She watched while Freya rolled and lit a precise joint, taking a deep drag and relaxing into the couch before pulling herself up enough to pass it to Gwen.

“Oh my God!” she said, “…seriously?”

Gwen flipped through the memories of the evening, trying to think of something nice about Arthur to say. “He seems…” she ventured.

“Unconcerned about personal hygiene?” Freya asked. “Obnoxious? _Completely_ uninterested in everything that Merlin is passionate about? Come on, Gwen. I don’t want to say that we’re too cool for him, but we are definitely. too. cool. for this guy.”

Gwen rubbed her forehead tiredly and passed the joint back to Freya.  Freya’s living room was lit with yellow Christmas lights: it was soothing, tempting to close to eyes in the warm darkness.

“Come on, don’t make me be the mean one,” Freya said. “You always do this. You always insist on finding the good in people, and making me be the bad one. Just admit it for once. You know he’s a prick.”

“He is.” Gwen sighed, “Ok? You’re right.”

“Say it.”

“He’s a prick,” Gwen admitted reluctantly.

“And he’s boring, which is a bigger crime. Come on,” said Freya, this size of her gestures suggesting she was still tipsy. “One day you’re going to be the biggest fashion designer on the West Coast, and I’m going to have paintings hanging next to Gerhard Richter’s. And Lance will have founded an NGO that saves a million people, and Mordred will be more famous than… than John Lennon. And what’s Merlin going to be? Tied down to a boring IT guy who rolls his eyes every time Merlin tries to talk to him about life, or art, or anything?”

Gwen had started smiling during Freya’s proclamation, as she imagined them all wildly successful one day. Now, she returned to the topic at hand. “They’ve only been dating a month,” she said. “Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a little? I mean, it’s been a while since Merlin’s met anyone. He doesn’t date much. This doesn’t have to be true-love-happily-ever-after – it can just be fun for him...?”

Freya glared at her balefully. “You and I both know that’s not how this is going to go down,” she retorted. “Merlin always falls hard. He’s probably already halfway in love with this asshole. Our luck, we’ll have to hang out with Arthur for at least a year before Merlin realizes what a loser he is, and then spend another six months helping him get over it.”

“Or we could tell Merlin what we think of him now,” Gwen said – although as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted it.

“Or we could just tell him,” Freya agreed, staring up at the ceiling. “Or, you know, not tell him directly, but still let him know how we feel.”

Gwen took a long drag, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw the mural that Freya had painted on the ceiling some time ago: pinks and blues that, in the dim light of the room, reminded her of a riotous, angry sunset.

“I guess,” she said sleepily, still unsure if she was making a mistake. “I guess you might be right.”

“I’m always right,” Freya agreed before yawning. “I’m getting tired,” she added, “you want to crash?”

She went and found blankets and a pillow for Gwen, and they made up the couch. Gwen drank a glass of water and took off her jeans and bra. She lay on Freya’s couch and admitted to herself that really, she didn’t believe that any of them were ever going to get famous as Freya had said. It was a nice dream but it was hard to imagine. They weren’t rich kids from New York City, growing up with access to the best art schools and tons of connections. They were talented and ambitious and deserving, but no more so than a million other people out there.

It was selfish of her when she knew that Freya wanted it so badly, but to Gwen, it was kind of a relief. Fame would have been too much pressure. All she wanted to live quietly in Albion, sewing on Saturday mornings, one dress at a time for one customer at a time, selling them for a price that would probably never reflect all the work she put into them. She wanted to watch the fashions of people on the street changing as the years went by, until she got older, and 2014 was a place you could only see in videos. She wanted her friends to be there with her.  

Most of all, of course, she wanted Lance to come home.

 

o-o-o

_Rewind, replay…_

o-o-o

 

Despite having finished his big deadline on Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday were still frantically busy for Arthur, Percy, and Leon, as they struggled to catch up with all the work he’d let slide while working on Tristan’s project.

As a result, he showed up at Merlin’s pub twenty minutes late, wearing a grubby t-shirt with bolognaise stains on it, and three-day’s unwashed jeans. He hadn’t shaved in twenty-four hours, but at least he had managed a shower that morning.

He had just ducked in the door when Merlin called out to him. They hugged, and for a brief moment their faces were close enough that Arthur could whisper “hi” to him, without everyone else hearing.

Merlin looked up at him, quick and pleased, and Arthur was so tired that he would have slumped against him, had Merlin not spun away too quickly, pulling him towards a booth in the back.

The place was nice comfortable and intimate, larger than it seemed from the outside. The relative darkness felt good to Arthur’s eyes, and there was music, and the crowd seemed like a mix of people who probably lived in the neighborhood. Merlin had mentioned that he and his friends were regulars there, and they had a usual table for Friday nights.

“Hi,” said Arthur, “I’m Arthur.” He sat in the remaining empty chair, and everyone scooted to make room for him.

“So,” Merlin was saying, “uh. This is Gwen – this is Freya. Gwaine couldn’t make it. This is Mordred, he actually works here too. There’s Gwaine, too, but he’s holding down the fort.”

He could see them looking him over. Merlin’s friends were all sort of like Merlin: a little hipster, a little granola. He gave the girl next to him – Gwen – his best charming smile.  She smiled back.

“So,” said the other girl – Freya, he thought, “We were just getting ready to order.”

“What do you recommend here?”

“The veggie burgers are good.”

He hadn’t eaten all day. A veggie burger hardly seemed substantial enough, and really, what was the point of trying to pretend that soy and meat were even in the same category?

He said as much, and watched the way Freya’s nose wrinkled with disgust. Ok, Arthur thought, good to know: no jokes about the soy. 

“Merlin’s a vegan,” said the guy, Mordred. “You do know that, don’t you?”

Arthur felt mildly annoyed.  Of course he knew – Merlin had mentioned it in the first ten minutes of their first date. He reminded himself that he tired, and that Mordred was probably just trying to look out for his friend.

“You don’t mind if I eat meat, right?” He asked Merlin, who laughed and said he didn't.

“So Merlin helps run his mom’s store,” Freya said. “It’s the oldest health foods co-op in the city.”

“I know,” Arthur glanced at Merlin. “That’s great.”

“Everything is non-processed and local.”

He nodded, wondering where was she going.

“He’s always said he would never fall in love with a carnivore.”

Arthur felt another twinge of annoyance, but Merlin was already laughing, and Freya was too, so he relaxed again.

“So you’ve never eaten meat?” He asked Merlin.

“Nah. My mom raised me vegetarian. I don’t even like the taste of it; it’s too strange to me.”

“I guess I could stand to eat less meat,” Arthur mused, but just then the waiter brought his hamburger, and it looked amazing. “I’ll start tomorrow, maybe.”

He saw the way the two girls - Gwen and Freya – shared a quick look. He could guess what they were thinking – that he was some kind of barbarian come to throw Merlin over his shoulder, and then force him to eat raw venison. He snorted at the thought.

Around him at the table, he counted two veggie burgers – a glass of water and a salad – and then another veggie burger. 

“So Arthur,” Gwen asked. “Merlin said you, uh, work in tech?”

Arthur nodded. “I majored in business administration, but, yeah,” he said. “It’s just my friends and I, we started a small company.”

“What do you guys make?”

“Right now, we’re focusing on software that increases the speed of certain processes, for cell phones.”

“Oh.”

Arthur stifled a sigh – that hadn’t been his best elevator pitch – and plastered on a smile. “How about you?”

“Well, my day job’s is working at Hunith’s.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Freya broke in. “Gwen’s a fashion designer. You should see her clothing, it’s amazing.”

Gwen blushed. “I just sell on Etsy and things,” she said, “for now. And Freya’s a painter. And Gwaine’s a photographer, and he races mountain bikes. And Mordred’s a musician.”

“Tell him about your band,” someone said to Mordred.

“It’s kind of hard to explain what I do.”

“It’s very cutting edge,” Freya told Arthur. 

“Yeah.”

There was an uncomfortable pause, during which they all blinked at each other and tried to think what to say next.

“So you’re all artists, huh?” is what Arthur came up with. “That’s great.”

Freya looked at him a bit pityingly. “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.”

Arthur let the group take over, trying to listen to the sound of Merlin’s voice and disregarding the way Freya and that other one, Mordred, seemed to be snubbing him.  He was too tired to keep talking, and it had been a long day, and it was easy to let the sound of their voices wash over him, moving from some gossip related to people everyone knew except for Arthur, into a discussion of the local music scene and some band that Mordred had been to see the night before.

“What was the last show you went to, Arthur?” Freya asked casually, reaching over to take a fry off Gwen’s plate.

“I haven’t been since… college, probably,” Arthur admitted.

“You don’t care about music, then? What do you like to listen to?”

Arthur shrugged. He liked classical music all right, and 80s rock while he was coding - but neither of those could really be called fully developed tastes.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“You know, Merlin’s a musician,” Mordred said helpfully, “he plays the drums. Sometimes he plays back-up for me.”

Arthur glanced at Merlin, who smiled at him.  “It’s ok,” Merlin murmured, and then added, louder, “don’t worry about them; they can take a while to warm up to people.”

“It’s fine,” he felt badly – they were Merlin’s friends, after all, and if Arthur hadn’t been so tired, he probably could have mustered up more energy to charm them. As it was, though, he was content to sit next to Merlin, in the comfortably darkness of the booth, and let the sound of voices wash around him.

"You have to listen to it,” Mordred was saying, with more enthusiasm that Arthur had heard him express for anything else that night. “ _Dark Sister._ It’s really good.”

Arthur nearly spat out his beer in surprise.

Both of them turned away from their conversation to frown at him.

"Have you heard of Morgana?" Freya asked skeptically.

"Maybe," Arthur said, thinking fast. "I think so. One or two of her songs?"

"What did you think?"

Arthur thought back to the last time he had seen his sister, just before the holidays. She had called him smug and spoiled, he had pointed out that her outfit had cost more than three month's rent, and then, pleasantries concluded, they'd proceeded to spend an evening getting drunk and bitching about Uther and Morgana's mother until late. The next morning she'd written him a check that kept his start-up running for the next three months, and kissed him on the cheek when he promised to pay it back as soon as he could.

"The lyrics are pretentious," he said, "and her voice is just so-so."  He smiled as he remembered Morgana as she had been when he’d first met her – fourteen years old, come to stay with Uther and her mother because she’d been kicked out of her second prep school, sitting on the toilet in the bathroom trying to teach herself to play the guitar because she hadn’t wanted anyone to hear her mistakes.

Mordred sniffed, "I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand her music anyway."

"Mordred!" Merlin sounded even more bothered than he had before.

"I probably am too much of a philistine to fully appreciate her music," Arthur said solemnly, "but I mostly like it, anyway." He got up, "where's the bathroom?

"Back to the left of the bar," Merlin said, "I'll show you.  Sorry," he added as they moved away from the table. "Mordred can be a little rude sometimes."

"It's fine," Arthur said.  They were alone in the corridor just then, so he gave into temptation and backed Merlin up against the wall, and kissed him once.

Merlin laughed against Arthur’s mouth, giving in for a moment before pushing away. “You go first,” he said, nodding towards the bathroom.

When Arthur came out, Merlin went in. Arthur was just going back to the table when he heard Freya's voice, carrying farther than she probably intended it too.

"He's not what I expected _at_ all,"

A few nervous giggles followed her statement, almost washed out in the noisiness of the bar. “Freya,” someone sighed disapprovingly – Gwen? – but was drowned out by the next  voice.

"Merlin said he was cute!”

"He might be if he would cut his hair," that was definitely Mordred's smug drawl, "and what's with those glasses? And those jeans?"

Arthur glanced down at his clothing, which, it was true, weren’t his best. He’d been in a rush to get to the pub, not wanting to be any later than he already was. Perhaps it wasn’t his finest moment, but on the other hand, why did it even matter?

Still, he could guess what they were talking about. Arthur wore what he wore because he’d spent the most of his life surrounded by rich kids who knew more about labels and brand names than global geography. Morgana, for one, was both meticulous and opinionated about her clothing.  Merlin's friends were a very down-market niche of the same demographic, but Arthur guessed that it shouldn't have surprised him that they also had their opinions.

"And that _attitude_ ” said Freya snarkily.

Arthur grit his teeth, took a deep breath, and then headed back to the table. “Hi,” he said, and watched in satisfaction as everyone’s eyes widened, uncertain as to if they’d been overheard.  “It’s packed in here,” Arthur drawled, as if he was oblivious, until they relaxed again. Good, Arthur thought, satisfied. Mentally, he imagined a wall between himself and them – an invisible one that only he would be aware of. All at once he wanted to charm the socks off of every one of Merlin’s snobby little art-house friends– not because he liked them, or wanted to be liked by them, but because this was _war –_ of the kind that growing up with Uther and Morgana had trained him for, far better that they could have any idea of.

That was probably a little bit overly-dramatic.

 

o-o-o

 

Later that night on the cab ride home, he texted Morgana.

_I’ve run into some of your fans in the wild._

Morgana responded right away, although it was pretty late in New York.

_What did they say?_

_That I'm too dense too properly appreciate your music._

_I've been telling you that for years._

_And apparently that I'm not good enough to date their friend._

_Oh please, Arthur._

After a pause, she texted him again. _I’ll call you._

_Not tonight, please. I just want to go home and sleep off my bad mood._

She knew him so well that when she called the next morning, it was right when he was nursing a coffee and just before he’d sat down at the computer to clear up an irritating, lingering bit of troublesome code. She knew just when to catch him, and just what to say to cause him to spill all the dirt from the night before.

"Hello, Little Brother," He tucked his cell phone under his ear, frowned at his laptop, and switched over to a game of solitaire: he didn't have the focus to work and chat at the same time. "So," Morgana went on, "who were these people with such excellent taste that they liked my music, but also such bad taste that they didn’t like you?"

"Friends of Merlin's," Arthur said. "Boho Hipster Assholes."

Morgana considered that, "Merlin?" She asked, "That guy you mentioned? You’re still seeing him?"

Arthur grunted.

"And you're met his friends already? It must be going well."

Arthur grunted again, “It was going well. Now, who knows.”

“So what happened?”

He grunted. “I don’t know. I suppose I wasn’t at my best.”

Morgana laughed into the phone, “that’s a first.”

“Shut up,” Arthur grumbled. 

“So what are you going to do?”

Arthur grunted again.

“So I’ll be there,” Morgana said. “Three weeks from now, remember? I’m giving concerts for three nights, but I’ll be in the city for a few days, so that I can spend time with my baby brother.”

“So that you can spend time with Leon, you mean.”

She laughed into the phone – bright and brittle, which meant that she was nervous. “Do you think he’ll be glad to see me?”

“He always is – the more fool him.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“I’m sorry.” Arthur paused, and forced himself to be direct. “It’ll be good to see you, Morgana.”

Neither sibling had ever been good with honesty or raw emotion, so, having reached their limit for the day, Morgana hung up on him.

 

o-o-o

_Oh my God_  
You’re the one I’ve been holding on  
For so damn long 

_-Jukebox the Ghost_

o-o-o

The next morning at the store things were awkward.

Merlin stocked produce and re-filled the bulk bins of flax seeds and almonds that the customers could scoop themselves. He didn’t notice that Freya and Gwen were huddled by the register, whispering instead of working, until it was past noon, and the produce hadn’t been stocked.

He just ignored them: he kept his head down, kept working. He didn’t know what he was going to say to them if they tried to talk to him: didn’t want to talk first for fear of letting things get out of hand.

It had been a while since he’d fought with his friends.

He heard the front door bell ring and heard Gwaine’s cheerful, “hello! Hello, Merlin!” He managed a decent smile as the other man breezed past, on his way to the break room: it wasn’t quite good enough to fool Gwaine. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine,” Gwaine cocked his head, “did something happen?”

“Nothing,” Merlin shook his head. Gwaine looked suspicious, but appeared to accept his answer for the moment.

As soon as Gwaine was in the break room, Merlin saw out of the corner of his eye Freya and Gwen, rushing to join him in there. Against his better judgment but unable to stop himself, Merlin trailed behind them, opening the door in time to see Gwen with her arms folded, Freya looking angry, and Gwaine perplexed.

“What’s this?” Gwaine asked. “The girls are worried that they gave you a hard time last night.”

Merlin glared at Freya.

“Oh God,” she said. “We did, didn’t we? Merlin, I didn’t mean too.”

Merlin sighed. “It’s ok.”

“It’s just,” Freya looked like she was debating saying something. Finally, she looked up at the ceiling, pulling her bangs up away from her forehead. “Merlin, I really, seriously wouldn’t say this if I didn’t mean it – you _know_ I wouldn’t – but. He just wasn’t what I expected.”

Merlin looked at her and then to Gwen, who looked away from him.

“What do you mean?” he asked slowly.

“If you really like him, I’ll – we’ll try again. I’m sorry,” she paused. “I know you’ve been single for a while, and really wanting to meet somebody. I’m just not sure if…” she trailed off, before taking a deep breath and finishing, “if he’s the one for you?”

“Thanks,” said Merlin, his own voice sounding harsh in his ears.  “That’s for telling me.” Horrifyingly, he felt his eyes growing wet: he blinked rapidly to prevent himself from tearing. “I… um.. yeah.” he said, and then turned and left the room.

“Merlin,” he heard Gwen call, before the door swung shut.

 

The next day, when Arthur stopped by the store, Merlin could practically see Gwaine sizing him up - his long, slightly unkempt blond hair, his thick glasses, his t-shirt and his sweatpants (and why, Merlin asked himself, did Arthur have to choose sweats on that day of all days?) and probably coming to a conclusion similar to everyone else’s.

Merlin didn’t know what to think. He knew his friends could be snobby, in their own way. Truth be told, he was too, from time to time. They had opinions about things like fashion, and music, and food and art. That was their thing: it was kind of like their armor. Other people might be smarter, or better looking, or have more money than they did – but they had the best taste.

He knew it was a little stupid. They didn’t see Arthur yet the way he did: everything about him was great, the funny hair and the funny clothes made him adorable, kind of: it made him approachable, too, even in the face of the fancy education and the genius job.

So Merlin pulled him into the break room to tuck a stray hair back behind his ear and take Arthur’s glasses off before he kissed him.

“Hi to you too,” said Arthur, looking pleased with his reception. “Your friend out there looked like he was ready to defend your honor, or something.

Oh goodness – without those glasses he really was even better looking that Merlin had realized.

“Just ignore them,” Merlin said, reluctantly pulling his hand away from Arthur’s chest. “It’s like I’m their kid, or something and they’re having a hard time adjusting to the fact that I’ve grown up.”

“Have you?” Arthur pressed forward suggestively, and Merlin reminded himself sternly, that he still had work to do. 

“See you later?”

“Yeah, later."

 

o-o-o

 

The next week Tristan unveiled the project that Round Table, Inc., had been working on for him, to the vice-presidents and department heads of the company. This required Arthur’s presence at several days’ worth of meetings.

He spent half his food budget for the month on a decent haircut – his first in over two years - and pulled some of his better suits out of the back of storage and sent them to dry cleaning. He went to the optometrist and got his prescription redone, and walked out with a couple of packets of contact lenses.

It was strange to see himself in the mirror the first time he put one of them back on. He’d lost muscle since he’d been in college, but he’d gained confidence. The suit still fit him pretty well. If he was honest with himself, he looked good.  He still looked like Uther’s son, but he also felt like himself: the monkey suit didn’t make him feel trapped in the same way it once had. 

The first day of meetings with Tristan’s executives passed uneventfully – he presented a few times and spent the rest of the time sitting politely while they worked their way through other topics. He could tell they were impressed by his ‘Pendragon’ name – he was also sure that most of them would, within a few days, find out about the rumors of how he’d fought with his father. Still, it never hurt to have a United States Senator in the family.

Afterwards, in the afternoon, Tristan half-heartedly invited him drinks – but Arthur guessed that he was actually anxious to get home to his girlfriend Isolde – so he politely declined.

It was already dusk when he left Tristan’s building and headed towards Albion with a plan of finding Merlin and surprising him with his transformation.

When he reached Hunith’s, it was rush hour. There was an older woman at the cashier’s station that Arthur knew must be Merlin’s mother. He hadn’t been properly introduced to her yet. He began to feel that his plan hadn’t been sufficiently thought out.

He used the pretext of buying a couple of granola bars as a pretext for looking for Merlin. Unfortunately, Gwaine found him first.

“Arthur?” His voice sounded strange.

“Oh. Hello, Gwaine.”

“It is you,” Gwaine looked confused. “You look different.”

Arthur frowned as if he didn’t understand, although in fact he knew exactly what Gwaine meant. “Work, you know.”

“Oh. Well. Are you looking for Merlin?”

Arthur nodded.

“Gwaine!” Freya had come around the corner with a box full of cabbages: she looked from one to the other, “Arthur?”

“Hello, Freya,” Arthur said, politely. “Is Merlin around?”

“In the back room.” 

Arthur raised an eyebrow at Gwaine, and then had an evil idea. “Actually, since I’ve got you both here. You mentioned that you like Morgana, is that right?”

Freya nodded. She was still surprised, Arthur could tell, and was trying subtly looking him up and down as if to reassure herself that he was the real thing.

“I saw that she has a show here in a few weeks.”

“I know,” Freya said slowly. “We’ve already got tickets. We’re all going together.” She paused. “I suppose we could see if we could get another…”

“Actually,” Arthur smiled apologetically. “You surprised me the other night, and I wasn’t quite honest with you. You see, actually, Morgana’s my half-sister.” He smiled. “She says that you’re welcome to come backstage after the show. Later on, maybe we can have drinks, or something?”

Freya squeaked. He could actually see the blood draining from her face, until she became very pale. “Yes, Arthur,” she managed, finally. “Yes. That would be lovely. Thanks.”

Then she just stood there, as if frozen to the spot.

Arthur smirked and headed towards the break room to find Merlin, who glanced up from the computer where he’d been reconciling figures, when Arthur entered.

 “I wasn’t expecting you.” He did a double take. “You’re dressed up!”

“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by.” Arthur spread his hands wide, “and the monkey suit is for work. What do you think?”

Merlin frowned uneasily. “You cut your hair?”

“Well, I thought it looked a bit more professional, you know.”

Merlin nodded slowly. “Yeah, of course.” He squinted at Arthur. “Are you wearing contacts?”

“Yeah.”

Merlin swallowed.

“I can’t pull you away, by any chance, can I?” Arthur asked enticingly.

 “Sorry, but it’s nearly the end of the month. If I don’t get through these numbers tonight, nobody will get paid on time.” He smiled apologetically. “Keep me company for a little while?”

Arthur pulled up a chair, and watched as Merlin tapped away in his excel spreadsheet.

“You know, there are programs for this,” he offered.

Merlin frowned. “I know,” he said, “but this sheet is just like the old paper version of the books that my mom used to keep. This is easier for her to manage.”

“If it’s good software, she’d easily pick up something new,” Arthur objected.

Merlin smiled at him, “yeah, maybe,” he agreed absently.

Arthur sat and watched him working away. He was tired, and the sound of Merlin’s fingers tapping at the old keyboard was soothing. He took out his iphone to check his email, and then put it away again, and went over to the couch to lie down.

When he opened his eyes a few minutes later, Merlin was standing over him, looking perplexed.

“Arthur,” he said, his voice catching weirdly in his throat.

“Yeah?” Arthur turned onto his back and stretched as best he could, throwing his legs off the side of the couch.

“What did you say to Freya?”

“To Freya?” Arthur yawned. “Oh, that.”

“She says your sister is Morgana LeFay.”

“Morgana Gorlias, actually. LeFay is just her stage name.”

“Oh,” said Merlin, quietly, “and you didn’t think to mention that before?”

“Sorry,” Arthur said, sitting up, “your friends surprised me the other night, and it was fun to get an unbiased opinion about her, for a change. Morgana says she’d love to meet them.”

“Oh,” Merlin repeated, “that’s nice of her,” he added, cautiously.

Arthur got up and stretched, catching the way Merlin’s eyes tracked his movement. “You don’t mind, do you?” he said persuasively. He leaned in, enjoying the way Merlin’s breath hitched slightly.

“Oh, I guess not,” said Merlin, “just, I wish you’d told me about it first.”

“I understand,” said Arthur. “Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

 

o-o-o

_When I was young I was valiant and bold_  
I fought off dragons and wrestled with trolls  
I was stupid, but I was brave 

_-the boy least likely too_

o-o-o

 

“It’s just, I’ve never actually met a famous person before,” said Freya, smoothing her color of her shirt for the millionth time as she helped Merlin lock up for the night.  The light from the streetlamps shone through the front window of Hunith’s, eerily illumining Merlin’s hand-lettered signs prohibiting plastic bags and informing when the next series of healthy-cooking classes would take place.

“It’s just Arthur’s sister,” Merlin said, although he sounded uncertain. “I mean, it’s not that big a deal, right?”

“It is a big deal,” Freya contradicted. “It’s _Morgana LeFay.”_ She paused, “I already texted Mordred and Gwen. We’re going to go shopping for something to wear to the concert.”

Merlin smiled tentatively.

“And also, oh my god, Merlin. Arthur looked so good today. I can’t believe how well he cleans up.”  She fanned herself. “Any other siblings? A brother?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I mean, seriously. Men in suits,” she sighed dramatically. “Take back what I said before, Merlin. You should date him forever. You should _marry_ him.”

“Because he looks good in a suit? And his sister’s famous?”

“Relationships have been built on less,” she agreed airily.

In fact, without much else to gossip about, that was what all the talk continued to about that evening, and the next, and the next. The more his friends congratulated him on his great new boyfriend, the more anxious Merlin felt. As a point of fact, he’d felt nervous around Arthur that afternoon in a way that he hadn’t before. The suit, the hair: all of a sudden Arthur looked like an unapproachable stranger. Merlin had hesitated over kissing him. He’d never been attracted to men who looked like models in magazines: he liked his guys comfortable –easy to hang out with – on his level, although he didn’t say as much to Gwen, since he knew she’d accuse him again of having an inferiority complex.

Arthur texted the next morning.  _So it turns out the guy we’ve been working on his contract for, wants to have dinner on Thursday to celebrate the deal._

 _I can take a rain check,_ Merlin wrote back.

_Actually, I was hoping you’d come with?_

Arthur texted him the address later. It was at the White Elephant – one of the newer, cooler places in town, that Merlin had certainly never been too, since there wasn’t a thing on the menu under thirty dollars.

His thumb twitched on his phone, hovering over the message that he’d typed out without thinking.

_Are you kidding? That place is SO expensive._

Did he really want to send that to Arthur? Presumably Arthur knew how fancy the place was. Presumably, he didn’t think that it mattered.  Merlin wondered if they would be expected to split the bill, in which case he’d probably end up blowing a quarter of the his mom’s store’s monthly profits on the meal. 

Finally he bit the bullet and hit _‘send’._

 _Expense account, Merlin._  Arthur’s reply came back. _Tristan’s, not mine. He’s an old friend from school – it’ll be chill._

Ok, Merlin thought.

He wore his best pants, and a jacket that Gwaine lent him, more expensive and more fashionable than anything Merlin owned. He still breathed a sigh of relief, though, when he and Arthur entered the restaurant and saw that everyone there was dressed about the same. 

“Over there,” Arthur said, and guided Merlin gently towards a table in the back, to where another man who looked very much like Arthur: trim, handsome, and well-dressed – with an equally exquisite blonde next to him. “This is Tristan,” Arthur said, “and Isolde. Good to see you.”

She offered him one cheek and then the other, as if they were French. Merlin shuffled in his shoes and tried to look like he knew what he was doing there.

And then the dinner was _awful._ Arthur and Tristan talked for five minutes about what kind of wine to order, like a couple of _wankers,_ and all Merlin could offer to the conversation was a comment about which local vineyards didn’t employ pesticides: but local wines weren’t even on the menu, it seemed, they ended up ordering something South African instead.  Isolde smiled and rolled her eyes at them, with a glance that clearly said “oh, men”, but when she included Merlin in the glance, it was as if she’d decided that, between him and Arthur, he was clearly the woman in the relationship, and that therefore they were in collusion against the two dunderheaded males.  Arthur didn’t seem to notice his discomfort, however, and his conversation with Tristan went from wine to their old rowing days (who knew rowing was still a sport? Merlin thought balefully) and then to their business deal, which Tristan seemed to think was going well and was ready to invest in to the tune of another, “say, three million?”

Merlin nearly spat out his (very expensive, nearly undrinkable) wine.

“We’re expecting the first year returns to be good,” Tristan was saying. “All signs are go. We should start on the follow-up now, you see.”

And Arthur was nodding his head but saying, “Yes, Tristan, that’s great, but you understand that it’s just me and Percy and Leon, and this isn’t really what we want all our energy to be focused on.”

“Then hire someone new,” Tristan said. “You can’t stay a company working out of your living room forever.”

The lovely Isolde, seemingly bored to tears, leaned towards Merlin. “So,” she said conspiratorially, “what do you do?”

“I run a grocery store,” Merlin said. “Health foods.”

“Like Whole Foods?” She looked interested. “The organic movement’s blowing up right now. Such an interesting industry.”

Merlin blinked, surprised by her enthusiasm. “Well, yeah,” he said cautiously. “Lots of new products coming on the market, and how organic they actually are really varies. We specialize in products from local producers, though – small family farms, that kind of thing.”

“Is that really cost-effective, though?” Isolde narrowed her pretty blue eyes, looking thoughtful.  “I’m in marketing, by the way.  Wait, I’ll give you my card.”  She rummaged in her little handbag.

“I’m afraid I… don’t have a card?” Merlin said as he accepted it, slightly confused as to whether he was supposed to give her something in return.

“Don’t worry, I can get your number later from Arthur. If you’re interested. You should call me - my company does consultancies as well. We’re very good, and I’ll give you a discount.”

“Thanks,” Merlin said, and just managed to avoid making it sound like a question. He wondered if the homeless man who occasionally came in and redid their window display in exchange for a week’s worth of free groceries counted as a ‘consultancy’ – but decided not to pose the question to Isolde.

“So Arthur’s a great guy,” she said, shifting topics abruptly.

“He is,” Merlin agreed.

“In school we always thought he’d end up with Sophia Ryan. She thought they would be the perfect power couple, or something,” Isolde rolled his eyes.

“Sophia Ryan?” The name sounded vaguely familiar.

“Arthur’s ex. He didn’t tell you? He finally caught her cheating and they broke up. Thank God.” She leaned a little towards closer Merlin. “She was one of those girls that doesn’t want to do anything for herself, you know? She thought it was Arthur’s job to do everything while she stayed home buffing her nails. I’ve always thought that a couple functions best when both of them are equally ambitious. That’s why Tristan and I get along so well, you know?”  She cast a quick glance at her boyfriend, who smiled back at her. “I mean, I guess you could say Sophia was ambitious, but in a totally different kind of way. She wanted to be one of those political Stepford wives who gets things done behind the scenes. If they’d stayed together Arthur never would have gotten the nerve to have broken off with his father.”

“Ok,” Merlin was totally lost.

Isolde seemed to realize it, and smiled apologetically. “Arthur’s still kind of dealing with it, you know,” she said, “I’m sure he’ll explain his version of the story when he’s ready.”

“Ok,” Merlin tried not to feel humiliated. The check arrived and Tristan put a black matte card on the table – Merlin never saw the price, but Arthur had ordered steak, and really, that couldn’t have been cheap.

In the cab on the way back Arthur covered Merlin’s hand with his own. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Did you have a good time talking to Isolde?”

“It was… interesting,” Merlin admitted. “She told me about Sophia,”

“Oh,” Arthur groaned. “Those two hated each other. Well, I guess Isolde was right about her, in the end.”

“You’re over her?”

“She turned me gay,” Arthur said, solemnly, and then, when Merlin looked shocked, he started to laugh. “Of course I’m over her, _Mer_ lin. I was gay the whole time. Sophie was just my- last ditch attempt not to be.” He paused. “She probably could turn a straight man gay, though.”  Merlin laughed, and Arthur did too. “Hey,” he said. “I know I told the cab to drop you off first, but do you want to come back to mine instead?”

Merlin glanced at him. Arthur’s plush, warm mouth: his too-good looking face and his too-expensive clothing and his charmed life, apparently, full of rick kids thinking about political marriages, who went on to make three million dollars deals over dinner.

“I’m kind of tired,” he said apologetically, and Arthur nodded and didn’t push the subject. Then Merlin said, “you know, on second thought…”

 

o-o-o

_All the umbrellas in London,_  
Couldn’t hide my love for you  
All the rain on Thames side  
couldn’t stop it shining through 

_-Stars_

o-o-o

 

“Is there anything else you’ve forgotten to mention?” Merlin asked the next morning, luxuriating in a nest of disrupted bed sheets.  Arthur looked infinitely better with his hair mussed and in need of a shave. He was only wearing boxers, which gave Merlin a nice view of his back as Arthur felt around on the floor for his glasses, which he’d knocked off the bedside table sometime during the night before.

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked, distracted, finally finding his glasses and pushing them up his nose. He looked lovely, squinting at Merlin in the morning sunlight.

“Any other famous siblings?”

“Oh,” Arthur’s voice went a bit flat. “Well, no, not really. A famous father, you could say.”

“Who’s that?” Merlin propped his head up on his elbows.

“Uther Pendragon.”

“Uther Pendragon…” Merlin repeated slowly. “Not the senator!”

“The one and only,” Arthur agreed, now grimacing.

“You mean your ex-girlfriend?”

“Sophie Ryan,” Arthur agreed. “The Vice President’s daughter. Can we not talk about it?”

“Ok,” Merlin agreed, his voice small.  He watched as Arthur got up, and went into the master bathroom. He closed the door, and then opened it. “Join me?” He asked, his voice playful. Merlin jumped up.

After the shower, he watched as Arthur shaved, and then dried and combed his hair, bringing it back to the state that he had seen it in the previous day – it was like some kind of transformation, how he went from the casual, slightly bedraggled guy who had hit on him in front of the cash register at Hunith’s, to this unfamiliar, untouchable person.  He was the same guy, he reminded himself. The same guy, even if he had gone to Harvard, and had a celebrity for a sister and a Senator for a father.

Unconsciously, he brought his hand up, and ran it down the back of his head: his hair never lay quite flat, and his mom still cut it for him, even though he was an adult.

He wondered if Arthur was rich, too. He couldn’t be, living in that small apartment, could he?

Arthur was pulling on a pair of pants and buttoning a white shirt. “Another day of meetings,” he explained. “This is going to be great for us, you know, if everything works out.” He looked regretful. “Sorry that we can’t make it a lazy morning.”

“No, that’s alright,” Merlin said. “I’ve got to get into the store, too.” He leaned over and picked up his hoodie from the night before, rumpled on the floor.

“I’m really glad you came,” Arthur said. “I’m really glad you stayed.”

“Me too,” he said, and meant it.

 

On the way downstairs he ran into Leon and Percy on their way up. Merlin froze, knowing that he must be blushing bright read. Percy and Leon merely exchanged a quick glance.

“Hello,” Percy said.

“Hello,” Merlin managed.

“Is this the part where we tell you that you’d better not break his heart?” Leon was joking, but he looped hard at Merlin as he said it.

“More likely, he’ll break mine,” Merlin told them, and ran away.

 

o-o-o

 _There’s no doubt of it,_  
You couldn’t care less,  
You love goodness,  
You think it’s endless, endless 

_-Sleighbells_

o-o-o

 

On the day of the concert, Freya spun around to show off the mini-dress that Gwen had snipped and sewn together from a much larger dress they had found together at a consignment store.

“You look great,” Merlin said, impressed, and smiled at Gwen too, to show that he knew how much work she’d put into it.

“Thanks,” she said, gratefully. She hadn’t had quite as much time to put into her own outfit – a sixties-style swing dress – but it still looked pretty good, if she did say so herself.

“We’re meeting Arthur at Kilgarrah’s, right?”  She asked Merlin.

“Yeah.”

They waited while Merlin apologized to his mom for the eleventh time for leaving her alone to manage the store on a busy weekend night, and then skipped across the street towards the pub.

“Arthur’s bringing his friends,” Merlin said, “Percy and Leon.”

She was glad he warned her, because the two guys standing at the bar with Arthur were – to put it simply – drop dead gorgeous.

“So he _does_ have brothers,” Freya whispered, soto-voce, causing Mordred to frown and catch her hand in his possessively.  Gwen raised an eyebrow. Now, _that_ was unexpected!

“We're all here?” asked Gwaine, piling in behind them, closing the door to the bar firmly to shut out the chilly autumn air.

A little later, they headed out to the venue in a rowdy group. Everyone seemed happy, but Gwen couldn’t help but notice the little tensions: that Gwaine seemed wary as a cat around Arthur and his buddies, and that Merlin and Arthur kept close together, but then slipped apart, and kept cast nervous glances in the other’s direction, when they thought the other wouldn't notice.

“Morgana’s got us tickets in the front,” Leon said. “Where are you guys sitting?”

Freya stiffened, and Gwen sighed, thinking of their seats on the upper tier.  One of Arthur’s friends – Leon, the more social one, said, “Merlin, why don’t you and I switch, so that you and Arthur can be together?”

“That’s ok,” said Merlin, on the point of declining.

“Merlin and I should switch, Morgana isn’t going to be singing to _my_ face in the crowd, anyway," Percy looked pointedly at Leon.

The two groups separated. 

“What did you mean about Morgana and Leon?” Gwen asked Percy curiously.

“Oh, they’ve been beating around the bush forever,” he replied good naturedly.

Down below, Arthur and Leon were elbowing their way forwards, dragging Merlin behind them. “Have fun!” Gwen called to him, waving.

“I would kill to be in Merlin’s shoes right now,” commented Freya.

 

The opening band finished, and Morgana came on stage in a burst red glitter. Some of it flew from the stage into Merlin and Arthur’s hair, causing Merlin to try to comb it out with his fingers.

“Hello Portland!” Morgana called. “Just kidding.”

“She shouldn’t do that,” Merlin muttered. “She’ll be killed.”

But then Morgana looked down into the crowd and said, “thank you all for coming out tonight.”  Her gaze slid from Arthur, to Merlin, to Leon.

He had no idea how she had so much energy. She bounced back from one side of the stage to the other, singing while she ran during the fast songs, and then transitioned into a quiet, ethereal angel, for the ballads. The crowd sang through her most famous numbers, and cheered her back for three encores.

Afterwards, they waited together while Gwen and the rest of them made their way down from the back.  Leon seemed to know where to go already, showing them the way to the side door where a guard was checking passes. 

“Hey, Leon,” he said, stepping aside to open the door for them.

There was a twisty hallway filled with equipment, and then an open room. Leon knocked on a door at the back.

“Leon!”

Morgana, somehow, retained all the glamour she’d had on stage, even life-sized and under normal lights. Merlin could practically feel Freya and Mordred starting to have a melt down behind him.

“I'm Morgana," Morgana said, turning from greeting Leon and Perce. “Nice to meet you, finally,” she said to Merlin.

“Nice to meet you too,” Merlin said stiffly. “These are – uh – these are my friends.”

“We’re huge fans,” Mordred blurted, and then turned a dark red.

“Thanks,” Morgana said rather coolly, and then added, “Any friend of my brother’s is a friend of mine.”

Arthur had already helped himself to a soda from the table along the back of the wall. He made a face at her.

“Come on, sit down,” Morgana said. “How was the show?”

They interrupted themselves telling her how good it had been, and she smiled, soaking up their praise.

“You must have been excited when you found out Arthur’s my brother, huh?” She asked Freya.

“Well, yeah,” Freya admitted. “It’s not every day we get to meet someone whose music we’ve been listening to for years.”

Morgana smiled. She glanced at Arthur, and then at Merlin.

“Almost makes him worth dating in spite of his flaws, right?”

Merlin grinned at Arthur. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“I wanted to give you this,” Mordred interrupted- his voice was shaking so much that Merlin thought he hadn’t meant to interrupt, only spoken at the moment he’d worked up the nerve. “It’s – um – it’s some of my music. Would you listen to it, and tell me what you think?”

The expression on Morgana’s face was, for an instant, devastatingly unimpressed.  Then, she smoothed it over with a smile. “Well,” she said to Arthur. “I guess they like you more now that they know I’m your sister.”

Arthur made an embarrassed sound.

“What do you mean?” Gwaine asked.

Morgana rolled her eyes. “Nothing.”

“Morgana,” Arthur said warningly.  She smiled sweetly back at him. 

“Nevermind,” she said. She glanced at Mordred. “I’ll listen to your little tape, ok?”

“Hey,” Freya said uncomfortably.

“Not if it’s any bother,” Mordred said, his face still red.

“Don’t be a bitch, Morgana,” Leon said. He’d gotten up to get a drink, which he now passed over to her. “You were in the same place yourself, not that long ago.”

Unexpectedly, she laughed. “I guess I was,” she said, sounding friendlier. “Sorry,” she told Mordred.

Nobody answered for a minute, and then everyone seemed to relax at once, and the conversation became more comfortable. Merlin and Arthur sat together, sipping rum and coke and letting Freya and Mordred complete for space at Morgana’s feet. After a few minutes, she began to look like she was enjoying herself.

Then Arthur got up to get a drink, and while he was up, Morgana plopped down into his spot.

“I got Leon and Perce to distract your friends for a minute,” she told Merlin. “I really wanted to say hi. I’ve heard so much about you from Arthur.”

“You too,” Merlin said. “He told me that you're trying to go vegan.”

“Well, maybe,” she admitted. “I keep backsliding, though. I get these crazy cravings for cheese.”

“Are you sure you’re getting enough protein?”

Morgana rolled her eyes. “You sound like Arthur. But I guess I’m not surprised: Arthur told me you’re a health food nut. I guess maybe all the advice he's been giving me over the phone, these past few weeks, actually came from you?”

“I don’t know,” Merlin admitted. “Possibly.”

Up to that point, he’d thought he was handling the whole evening pretty well – front row seats, back stage passes, and now he was chatting with a moderately-famous celebrity about her taste in non-dairy substitutes. But Morgana’s face was so close to his on the couch, and even with less than a foot between them she still looked flawless: her face, her skin, and her long eyelashes, stuch with a few bits of glitter from the show.

He felt dizzy.

“Are you ok?” Morgana asked.

“Yeah,” he told her. “It’s just- ” he glanced quickly around the room. “This is still kind of surreal, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just,” he leaned forward, confiding in her. “When I first met Arthur, I didn’t realize he was – all this, you know? Your family is kind of famous, and he’s rich and everything, isn’t he?”

“Pretty much,” Morgana said, dryly. “Is that a problem?”

Merlin didn’t answer for a moment. "It's just not who I am.

“So you’re saying he’s too good for you?”  All of a sudden Morgana had gone from sweet and easy to talk to, to frightening. 

Merlin was confused. “No,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe? A little?”

“Then maybe you should break up,” Morgana continued, her voice growing sharper. "If that's really how you feel."

Merlin stared at her. She stared back, confrontational. Unsure what else to do, Merlin stood up awkwardly from the couch. He glanced helplessly over to where Arthur, looking concerned, was already heading towards them, and suddenly felt that he couldn't stay there another minute.

“It was nice to meet you, Morgana,” his tongue felt heavy and clumsy as he tried to form the words. He headed for the door.

“Merlin!” Arthur was following behind him, but he picked up his pace, avoiding the pieces of equipment littering his path until he made it outside.

A drizzle must have started up sometime during the concert. Now it was growing heavier, turning into a proper rain. There were still a couple of people in the parking lot, leaving the venue. As the rain increased, some started to run for their cars, others raised their faces towards the sky.

“Merlin!” He heard Morgana say, running up behind him. He turned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to say that. I mean – I have a sharp tongue. I’m always saying things that I shouldn’t.”

“It’s ok,” Merlin said, sighing. “Maybe you were right, anyway.”

“No,” said Arthur.

“Look,” said Morgana. She glanced from one side to the other, wary of the small crowd that was gathering to watch them.  “All I was trying to say is that, if you think that my brother’s too good for you, then he probably is.”

“Morgana!” Arthur snapped. She glared at him. “What, Arthur?” She tossed her hair. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. You don’t need to be with somebody who feels sorry for himself.”

“I don’t.” Merlin snapped back.

Unexpectedly, Morgana grinned. “Well, finally, a little bit of temper out of you!”

“I don’t think that you're better than me,” Merlin repeated, glancing at Arthur. “I don’t think that I’m not good enough for you.  So what if you’re good looking – and rich – and your sister is famous,” he gestured at Morgana, “even if she is kind of a bitch. Arthur, I know that stuff doesn’t really matter, but the whole world is constantly saying that it does – you can’t expect me to just get over it in a day.”

Arthur frowned. He was starting to look rather soggy, under the rain – his hair plastered flat against his forehead.

Morgana stalked forward, coming close to Merlin. “I’ll tell you something about my brother that he won’t tell you himself,” she told Merlin. “All his life, people have been after him, because of who he is - his last name. If you don’t get over it right now, you are going to hurt him – and if you hurt my little brother, then I’m going to fuck. you. up.”

“Noted,” said Merlin, his mouth dry.  Morgana’s face was so close that he could finally see that her eyelashes, now full of raindrops, were fake, and that her mascara was starting to smear.  Evidence, finally, that she was only human after all. The stress was starting to get to him. He giggled.  

“What are you laughing at?”  Morgana asked him.

He shrugged helplessly. He couldn't stop. Finally, Morgana started laughing too. Arthur just stood there, looking from one to the other, as if he thought they were crazy

It wasn't just raining anymore, it was a real storm, rain coming down in buckets and drenching them all the way through to their skin.  Then there was a sudden flash of light, and a crack of thunder, and when they looked around they saw steam coming off the hood of a little red Mini, that had just been struck by lightening while its apparent owner, a girl with her key already extended to out into the lock, shuddered in surprise. With that, even Morgana’s appearance wasn’t enough to keep the spectators from running for cover. 

Merlin grabbed Arthur’s hand as they headed back towards the stadium to wait out the worst of the storm. He wished that there was a way to take a photograph of a sense-memory, like that: the feel of Arthur’s hand in his, the cold air in his lungs, his wet clothing dragging him down as he tried to run.

 

o-o-o

 _your magic potions_  
your precious jewels  
are only notions  
you feel a fool  
do you want riches  
do you want fame  
do you need millions to know you  
so you don't forget your own name 

_-Deb Talan_

o-o-o

 

After the concert Leon disappeared for three weeks, travelling with Morgana as she finished up her tour on the west coast. When he came back, Arthur and Percy immediately dragged him back to their office-apartment. They needed to work overtime to meet their next imminent deadline.

Merlin texted the whole week, and brought them soup and quinoa made with veggie broth. Leon was making noises about becoming a vegetarian: Percy and Arthur were quietly horrified, but Merlin was encouraging him with one dish after another.

On  Saturday Arthur called Merlin “We’re almost done,” he said. “Can I come over?”

“What? Now?”

“In a few hours? Nine or ten?”

“Aren’t you going to be tired?”

“I don’t mind.”

When he got to Merlin’s door, grubby and ink-smeared, Merlin took one look at him, and jumped him.

“What?” Arthur said, finally, when they finally pulled away from kissing, “this does it for you? Me after a week of all-nighters?”

Merlin looked at him, his mouth red and shining. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. The, uh. I like the stubble.”

“I’m disgusting.”

Merlin seemed to realize that only belatedly. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Well, you can shower. Come on,” he added, pulling Arthur further into the apartment, “I’ll help you.”

 

o-o-o

 

“So, I was thinking,” he told Arthur, many hours later – when they were lying naked on Merlin’s bed, pretty messy again. “How would you feel about not shaving quite as often?”

“You really do like stubble, don’t you?” Arthur said, leaning in to rub it against Merlin’s collarbone, until he laughed and batted him away.

“I do, ok? Do you mind?”

Arthur shook his head. “Not at all.”

“And you could keep your hair a little longer?” Teasingly, he reached out, running his fingers through it.

“Except when I need to cut it for work.”

“Deal,” said Merlin, and then added, "and skip the contacts...?"

 

o-o-o

 

“Hi Clark,” said Freya, one afternoon not too long after, when Arthur pushed backwards through Merlin’s front door with his arms full of groceries and found her in the kitchen, eating a spoonful of peanut butter.

Arthur grunted, dropping the bags on the kitchen island. Just then, Merlin came down the hall, his hair and skin shower-damp.

“Why do you call him that, anyway?” Merlin asked, slipping his arms over Arthur’s shoulders. Arthur grinned, and leans in for a quick kiss.

“Right now he's Clark Kent,” Freya explained, gesturing up and down at Arthur, “and when he cleans up, he’s Superman.”

“Ah,” Merlin wrinkled his nose at Arthur dubiously. “I don’t see it myself.”

 

o-o-o

 _You said it would be alright_  
But I just don't know  
  
She wrote the verse  
To all of his dreams 

_-Oliver Tank_

o-o-o

 

On Saturday Lance called from Zambia. Gwen had been waiting for the call, her phone was charged and ready. She went out on the porch, which had good light as well as a strong cell phone signal, and sank into a wicker chair to tell him everything about Merlin’s new boyfriend, with all the drama that had surrounded him in the past few weeks and how everything had been resolved.

“So,” she said, after she’d been talking for a while. “What’s new with you? Are you packing up, getting ready to come home?”

His voice sounded sunny over the phone. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. “I’ve applied to stay for a third year.”

She felt her stomach drop.  “I want you to come back,” she said clearly.

“I know, Gwen. I want to see you again too,” he sighed. “I just feel like this is something I have to do, first.”

“First? Before what?”

“Before I settle down, you know…” his voice had started to echo slightly, usually a sign that the connection was about to cut out.

You’re worried you won’t have any more adventures, Gwen thought. Out loud she said, “there are plenty of people to save right here in Seattle, Lance.”

“I know that, I just…”

“I think we have to break up,” said Gwen, finally, “if you’re really going to do this to me.”

“I know,” Lance said. “I’m sorry.” 

They both knew that she would still be there waiting, when he got back.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are all the songs I mostly listened to while writing. Most of all, Deb Talan's Ithaka, which is to me the quintessential Arthur Pendragon song. 
> 
> Some of these (Built by Snow?) I was definitely exposed to through A/M fan playlists created by other people, but I can’t remember the details well enough to give credit where credit is due. So if you ever made an AM playlist with one of these on it… that was probably my inspiration… let me know and I will attribute it. 
> 
>  
> 
> Playlist:
> 
> Matt & Kim - Let's Go  
> Built by Snow - All the Weird Kids Know  
> Imagine Dragons - On Top of the World  
> Bombay Bicycle Club - Ivy & Gold  
> Wolf Gang - The King and All of His Men  
> Jukebox the Ghist – Empire  
> The Boy Least Likely To - Fairytale Ending  
> Stars – Aspidistra Flies  
> Sleigh Bells - Crown on the Ground  
> Deb Talan - Ithaka  
> Last Night I head everything in slow motion

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally started as a fill for a prompt on the kinkmeme that I never got around to posting. A year later I rediscovered it in my notes and finished it off. 
> 
> http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/32553.html?thread=33900329#t33900329


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